Trump again defiant after rare mea culpa on Putin trip

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday returned to a defiant posture, insisting his deeply controversial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will prove to be a great success “in the long run” and complaining that his critics are suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

One day after issuing a rare mea culpa — in which Trump claimed he meant to say there’s no reason to believe it “wouldn’t” have been Russia that meddled in the U.S. election — Trump appeared to be walking back his walk-back.

“While the NATO meeting in Brussels was an acknowledged triumph, with billions of dollars more being put up by member countries at a faster pace, the meeting with Russia may prove to be, in the long run, an even greater success. Many positive things will come out of that meeting” Trump tweeted.

“Russia has agreed to help with North Korea, where relationships with us are very good and the process is moving along. There is no rush, the sanctions remain! Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!”

The president, in a flurry of posts to Twitter, insisted that, contrary to the barrage of criticism he has faced over the last 48 hours, many in the “higher ends” of the U.S. intelligence community think highly of his performance at a bilateral press conference with Putin, where he publicly sided with the Russian president over his own intelligence agencies.

Those who have been critical of him, the president said, are “haters” upset that he has a warm relationship with Putin, a former KGB agent who the U.S. intelligence community has concluded with “high confidence” ordered the 2016 cyberattacks targeting the U.S. election process.

“So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki,” Trump wrote on Twitter early Wednesday morning. “Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!”

“Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome!” Trump added later, echoing language Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) used recently to label critics of the president.

Trump’s tweets capped a whirlwind few days in which Trump found himself perplexed by the severe blowback to his remarks in Helsinki.

“I’m really delighted that he took a serious look at it. He hates to correct himself. That’s not who he is. But I think he did the right thing, and I think he did it well” — Newt Gingrich, former U.S. speaker of the House

He was initially reluctant to walk back his comments, but senior administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and chief of staff John Kelly encouraged him to “clarify” his remarks, according to a person familiar with the issue, prompting his unusual statement in the Cabinet Room on Tuesday.

But even in trying to de-escalate the situation, Trump couldn’t help but insert some doubt about the widespread intelligence community consensus that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. “Could be other people also,” he said Tuesday.

And by Wednesday morning, Trump was back to the posture in which he is most comfortable — bombastic statements that stretch the truth and attempt to make the case that he’s a master dealmaker.

At the White House and among the president’s outside advisers, Trump’s Tuesday statement was received with decidedly mixed reviews. One person close to the president worried it made him look weak and said his explanation was ham-fisted, while another said it was necessary given the outcry over his Helsinki news conference, which even bothered Trump’s most ardent defenders.

The mood in the White House on Tuesday was decidedly dark. After the White House Office of Management emailed staff about a routine internet outage, staffers turned to gallows humor, joking that Russia was behind it, according to an administration official.

Still, Trump’s confidants remain confused about exactly why the president insists on subtly questioning the intelligence community and maintaining such a close relationship with Russia. One person close to the president said his best explanation is that Trump has a deep-seated fear of being seen as an illegitimate president and he worries that fully endorsing the assessment that Russia interfered in the election will lend credence to claims that Hillary Clinton should have won.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his House counterpart, Speaker Paul Ryan, have had to deal with the fallout from Trump's meeting with Putin | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

While Trump’s opening months in office have been regularly punctuated with controversy, the criticism he has faced in the wake of his meeting with Putin has been especially fierce. The bilateral summit in Helsinki was seen by many as overly warm and absent the type of confrontation that many have argued was merited by Russia’s recent bad behavior on the world stage.

While Trump claimed Wednesday that his performance at Monday’s meeting had been a hit within the intelligence community, his apparent willingness to accept Putin’s denial that Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 race prompted blowback from the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats.

“We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security,” Coats wrote in a statement earlier this week.

Perhaps further evidence that Trump’s news conference performance was poorly received came Tuesday, when the president took the rare step — for him — of admitting a mistake when he told reporters that he had misspoken at Monday’s event. When he said, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia, Trump explained, he had meant to say “wouldn’t,” as in “I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia.”

Defenders of the president, usually numerous among Republican ranks, have been few and far in between in the wake of Trump’s Helsinki summit, with Republican lawmakers – including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – venting emotions ranging from frustration to outrage over Trump’s remarks.

But counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway appeared Wednesday on “Fox & Friends,” the morning news program the president is known to prefer, where she parroted Trump’s defiance, blaming the media for its emphasis on the Kremlin’s election meddling and the Obama administration for the state of U.S.-Russia relations.

“When the media talk about the Supreme Court, they only talk about abortion. When they talk about Russia and U.S., they only talk about election meddling. And yet, we have faith in the American people, who is our ultimate audience, to listen to everything this president is saying,” Conway said Wednesday.

“This nonsense that you shouldn’t even meet with the leader of the Kremlin, where were the media when other presidents did exactly that?” she said. “And it’s really ridiculous to not acknowledge that it is failures of the last administration.”

And Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who is close to Trump and was harshly critical of his performance in Helsinki, credited the president for making Tuesday’s correction. Like Conway, Gingrich was also eager to cast blame on the Obama administration, a frequent deflection tactic of the White House and its allies.

“This was a very important moment for this president. If he had not fixed this, if he had not had that talk in the Roosevelt Room, if he had not gone on to reinforce the American intelligence system, I think we would be in a much bigger mess right now,” Gingrich said. “I’m really delighted that he took a serious look at it. He hates to correct himself. That’s not who he is. But I think he did the right thing, and I think he did it well.”